Recruiting Files: Smith

Recap what former Crows National Recruiting Manager Matt Rendell said about Adelaide's first-round draft pick from the 2010 National Draft, Brodie Smith.

Brodie Smith, pick No.14 in the 2010 National Draft

Debut season - 2011
Games: 14
Goals: 2

Matt Rendell:

The 2010 draft was a great draft.

There were lots of great midfielders, but there were also some good key-position players like South Australian boys Seb Tape (Gold Coast, pick No.13) and Sam Day (Gold Coast, pick No.3) who we really liked, but always knew would go very early.

We concentrated on the midfielders that were likely to go in the first round such as Dion Prestia (Gold Coast, pick No.9), Dyson Heppell (Essendon, pick No.8), Josh Caddy (Gold Coast, pick No.7) and Brodie Smith.

We knew very early on that a lot of the mids we liked were going to be taken by Gold Coast and we were very happy to take Brodie.

He just kept on stepping up throughout the year and playing well.

We had him on our radar even before the under-18 championships, where he starred for SA.

Initially, I was a little bit worried about his kick.

It’s not 100 per cent technically correct, but he just keeps getting it done.

I thought another 188cm midfielder/half-back flanker would complement us.

It’s not as though we’ve planned according to the Geelong model, but it’s turned out we’ve got a lot of 188cm midfielders or players around that height, who can play multiple positions.

If I was a coach, they are the type of players I would like.

Brodie is a man of few words and didn’t say boo in our interviews with him.

Everyone kept telling me how great his leadership skills were and I remember thinking, ‘well his leadership isn’t coming out of his mouth’.

I thought, he must be the ‘do as I do’ type of leader and not the ‘do as I say’ and he is.

I challenged him a few times in the interview, but he was cool, calm and collected … just like how he plays.

Nothing worries Brodie.

He just goes along and does his work.

He never plays poorly and tries his guts out.

Every club’s got to have a few of those blokes because they win you finals.